A good school is one where the adults notice things

I still teach one section of Class 9 literature every week. My colleagues think this is sentimental. It is actually self-defence — it is the only way I stay honest about whether the decisions I make in meetings survive contact with thirty fourteen-year-olds on a Thursday afternoon.

People ask what makes a school good. After twenty-two years of teaching I think the answer is boring: whether the adults in the building notice things. Whether someone notices that a child who used to put their hand up has stopped. Whether someone notices that a teacher is drowning. Whether someone notices that a policy which sounded sensible is quietly making life worse for the children it was meant to help.

Everything we have built here — the class-size cap, the weekly tutorials, the fact that a form tutor stays with a group for three years — is machinery for noticing. None of it is glamorous and none of it appears in a brochure well.

What I would say to a parent considering us is this. We will not promise you your child will top the board. We will promise that if something changes in your child, somebody here will notice, and you will hear about it from us before you hear about it from your child.